From the forums: How to completely switch from Gmail to Outlook

As if you needed another reason why the Windows Phone Central forums are the best around. You can head there to find all sorts of information and perks. Sometimes developers will recruit users to test drive an upcoming app for them. You can also find the latest and greatest apps that nobody knows about or just kick it with like-minded smartphone users. Then there are times like today where you get awesome tutorials like this one to completely switch from Gmail to Outlook.

Forum member Jakeeeee has posted an easy to follow guide on migrating your life off Mountain Views servers to those in Redmond. The guide holds your hand as you transfer contacts, mail, calendar and documents to Microsoft’s services. Something we recommend doing if you’re using a Windows Phone. That way if Google pulls anymore stunts like dropping EAS support you won’t get stuck.

Hit up the thread right now in the forums to go through the process. While there be sure to poke around and check out other threads if you’re new.

Man,, you people ar ejust crazy. Ok,
NO.1 Gmail is the best email client out there right now. There is no arguing about that.
NO.2 Why should we defend Microsoft? Either they push an update that supports the new protocols, or they biuld a gmail client from the ground up. Its that simple.
N0. 3 Youtube. Biuld the app man, am sure if microsoft wanted the app out there, it would be. They are not short on expertise. P.S metrotube is awesome, but Microft should have something official
NO.4 Hell No, am not moving to outlook
Conclusion: Microsoft is just being lazy.
P.S I have a samsung focus

"NO.1 Gmail is the best email client out there right now. There is no arguing about that."
Well, that settles that, then. Isn't it nice when differences of taste and/or differences in desired features are logically impossible?

I've used EAS for my Gmail for years. It has always been faster, more reliable, and used less data than googles crappy custom IMAP protocol. I refuse to use their crappy IMAP, and have added custom exchange accounts to Windows Phone, iPhone and Android. No EAS = Google can EAD.

Oh and Youtube app? Why? The youtube web page is great, that's all I had pinned in iOS, why would I want more than the Microsoft youtube app that goes straight to the current youtube page?

What is the link between youtube and outlook? You are not stick to gmail if you want to have google account. I'm lucky to move to hotmail 2 years ago, after founding google messing up my search results by scanning my personal data in gmail inbox, that was not good at all.

My client who use gmail as his or her prim contact gain no repect for me, vice versa. Show yourselve in cooperate account or else. Personal use, I just dont see you no1 point. Easily one of the most complicated shit out there for sure

NO.1 Outlook is the best email client out right now. There is no arguing about that.
NO.2 Why should we defend Google? Either they support the most popular email protocol or they build a Gmail app for WP from the ground up.
NO.3 YouTube. No first party solution will be better than MetroTube(atleast not at launch). Either google builds a YouTube app or I use MetroTube. Google should have something official.
NO.4 Hell no. I am not using Gmail.
Conclusion: Google is just being lazy.
P.S. I have a Lumia 710. See how that argument works.
The only google product I now use is YouTube.

I used to use Gmail until they started auto-enrolling in their other crap and auto-sharing my friends and contacts. Now it is my spam account and I only check my Gmail In Private mode. I don't like Gmail's ads or it's business either. It wouldn't make my top 5 email clients.

So true. I know Google Voice is great; but, other than that, Microsoft Office, Excel, and Skydrive are all much better than Google alternatives. Gmail vs Hotmail is about the same. Gmail is less glitchy; but Hotmail is mostly bug free. Yahoo and Aol are bad.

This. Vimeo is great, but I wouldn't confuse it with a Youtube equivalent. It caters for more arty/creative users and doesn't feature many mainstream videos in comparison. It wouldn't surprise me if MS develop their own direct competitor once Bing prevails over Google search. I would love to see a video community across the MS services. There's quite a lot of things to share: Xbox, music, videos, smartphones, etc. :) "Xbox Tube" j/k :D

I switched to outlook and so have some of my friends and coworkers for the same reason we switched to Gmail years ago... Hotmail was slow and cluttered. Now Gmail is getting very cluttered and inefficient. And outlook is so fresh and so clean.

Since MSFT hasn't incorperated certain open protocals that Google uses, without Exhange, a Windows Phone can't sync Contacts and Calendars. No Push either. For some, Gmail is everything. So everything Gmail users on Windows Phone will need to switich.

Pi: I did, the only way to move any of my music is to convert it to MP3. 920 doesnt support WAV or MP4 or anything else, except for MP3. Unless you have a newer pc(which I don't because there is no reason for me to pick up a new one since mine works as good as a new one with the exception that it doesn't run on 64-bit and it doesn't have win 7 or 8.).

When writing an email you can choose which email to use but I don't think you can change that in the reply step. For this reason I totally renamed my MSFT account to be @outlook.com. (in mail settings you can "rename your email address"; if you already own the alias you want to rename to, you have to first abandon it for some buggy reason. You do this in account details, notifications, email. Abandon it (won't lose any data!) then rename your email email address to the said alias. Voila! FYI you will have to reset your phone fully since it doesn't let you change your MSFT account name otherwise) hope that helps.

If anyone of you wondering if this is just a quick fix for Google Users, no it isn't. It is a full transition that is going to work.

I used to be a Gmail user and I can tell you they lack of quality control and require plugins from third parties etc. One example is their To-Do list. Microsoft has long having the To-Do in the Office Outlook and sync well since the Windows Mobile days. Google app does not sync this and it is not as robust a list management compared to WP. Labels are just categories in Outlook so it makes no difference.

Enough said, I am for one a happier Outlook.com user than Gmail. Transition is smooth and complete.

I don't really recommend bing; and as of now, google searches are getting worse with their personalized searches and content filtering. I'm weaning myself off google and changed my search engine to DuckDuckGo. It's a nice and customizable search engine that you can use to find webpages and answers. - Note this is not a spam I'm just recommending a search engine here.

Managed to do it successfully, but not without jumping through lots of hoops just to get it done. This tip helped, though I also have to rely on Outlook's guide as well because I have to configure GMail to forward its mail to another hotmail account in order for Outlook to send and receive mail from the former.

Transition of the calendar, and contacts: done. Contacts was a bit of a hassle. I removed,Facebook and twitter accounts, then deleted all contacts. Then imported the file. Then added fb and twitter again.

Been thinking of boycotting as many Google products as possible for a while now. And I realise I should have done this a long time ago, so thank you Google for dropping Exchange support, now I have one less reason to look your way. Thinking of deleting Chrome, too.

Lucky for me, I've been a hotmail user since 2000, back when it was MSN Hotmail. I've seen it go through three iterations. GMail has its strengths but its advanced features like label, conversation view, etc. weren't that enticing to me. Google is just being plain evil by screwing over its users who just happen to prefer the Microsoft platforms and possibly forcing them to switch. They have always treated windows phone as a second class citizen by giving it an inferior page, but all these recent changes are pushing me off most of Google's ecosystem. Unfortunately there is no viable youtube alternative.

I am so glad that I was slowly phasing away from gmail for a while anyway. Google has gone from Do No Evil to thermonuclear war upon Redmond. I think it is time to phase Google out of my life in general.